Tonight You Belong to Me
by 123serendipitee
Summary: Nick and Jess end up spending Valentine's together.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**  
**In case you don't know the song "Tonight You Belong to Me",**  
**or haven't heard it in awhile... you can cut and paste the following at YouTube dot com:**  
** watch?v=pW5kKF-rlAs**

**(I suppose I should have linked Zooey's version, because, HELLO! :op**  
**And I thought about linking the clip from "The Jerk" since this is from Nick's POV.**  
**But in the end, I went with this version because it's just soooo sweet!)**

* * *

Nick felt like a caveman, ignoring her resistance and literally dragging her off to her bedroom. He threw her on her bed, and stood there looking down at her for a second or two while he tried to catch his breath. She was panting too, sprawled in wild, indelicate beauty as she looked up at him with wide eyes, and he had to gulp hard as he took her in from head to foot. Her black outfit fit her like a damn glove, and from her impossibly tiny waist, to the gentle swell of her hips, every luscious curve was perfectly, distinctly show-cased.

Only Jess could still look so classy, and yet so completely, totally, irresistibly FUCKABLE at the same time.

He couldn't seem to stop the heaving of his chest, and his eyes narrowed darkly as he demanded in a low and dangerous voice, "Give me the condoms, Jess."

"What?!"

"HAND. ME. THE CONDOMS."

But when Jess just threw an arm across her face, he leaned over and roughly grabbed her hands. She wrestled with him feebly,as if she knew that this was a fight she would never win. And when she submitted, she went so suddenly, totally still, that they froze for a long moment or two, their faces mere inches apart, both breathing hard as brown eyes and blue eyes collided.

Then Nick shook himself back to reality and, forcibly peeling back her fingers, removed the condoms she was still holding onto for dear life, angrily heaving them across the room. "You're not going to be needing those tonight," he growled, as they bounced unceremoniously off the wall.

And later, Nick would reflect that that was about as close as he got to having Valentine's Day sex, that year.

"I'm going to go pick up the rest of that RIDICULOUSLY HUGE box of condoms, and then I'm REALLY going to need a beer," he groused. "Don't you DARE leave this room until I get back." He started to leave, but her little voice stopped him.

"Nick?"

_"What?"_

"Have we got any ice cream?"

"I don't know, Jess, I could look," he answered irritably.

"Can you please? I...I could really use some ice cream about now," she said, sitting up and swinging her booted legs around to dangle awkwardly off the edge of her bed. She took in a ragged breath, and ran an absent hand over her mussed hair. The slump of her shoulders and the watery state of her eyes were already enough to suddenly melt away his anger, but it was her pathetically sad little face that did him in. For some reason, he immediately flashed back all those months ago, to walking into that restaurant and seeing her waiting so forlornly for her no-show "rebound" date. And he marveled that even then, when he'd barely known her, his instinctive desire to preserve her happiness and innocence had already been so strong.

And now...well now, sometimes he felt like it was the fiercest and purest emotion he'd ever known, this intense protectiveness he inexplicably felt for her. So now, without even realizing he was using the endearment, he said in a gravely voice, "Baby girl, I will_ get _you some ice cream. And then we're going to talk."

And a nameless emotion burned hot in his chest all the way across the loft and right up until the moment he stood there, gazing in dismay down at the pile of rubbers right outside Schmidt's door.

Right outside _SCHMIDT'S_ door.

**RIGHT OUTSIDE SCHMIDT'S DOOR!**

The sobering knowledge of exactly what he'd barely-gotten-there-in-time-to-stop struck him all over again, and as he agitatedly scooped up the mess, his more noble emotions were replaced by something seething that, strangely, seemed to choose to settle in behind his eyes and make them sting.

He jerked open the fridge with way more aggression than was necessary, emitting a harsh curse when he saw there was only beer left. He grabbed the open bottle that someone had left in there (it really didn't matter who) and pounded it back, before grabbing the last one to go. And when he found half a gallon of Cherry Garcia in the freezer he muttered to himself that Jess had gotten lucky.

Because he was no longer feeling inspired to scour the city if necessary in order to to get her her sweet fix.

Returning to her room, he tossed the economy-sized prophylactic box on her bed and griped, "Jess, where do you even GO ABOUT buying a box of condoms that big?! Are there wholesale clubs for brothels or something?!"

The second he realized she wasn't even in the room, she returned from the bathroom, wrapping a band around the end of a long braid and crossing over to retrieve her glasses from the top of her bedside table. She pushed them up the bridge of her nose and looked at him slightly nervously, with round, unblinking eyes, like a damn baby owl. _ Dammiiiiiiiit_, he thought, as he handed over her ice cream and spoon. Because he never could resist her when she looked like that...like she was about ten years old. He smiled inside as he noted the complete 180 her appearance had taken, and once again his roller-coaster emotions took an unexpected turn, the anger dimming in him as quickly as it had flared. Taking in the heart-strewn flannel pajamas she'd changed into, he sniffed ironically, "Believe it or not, I am now in possession of a matching pair of boxers." And he pulled them out of his jacket pocket and dangled them as proof.

"NO!" Jess celebrated, clearly delighted.

"Yes!" he affirmed. And just for the sake of eliciting one of her girlish little giggles, he put them on over his pants. "I'd just like to point out, this is the second time tonight I've been wearing my underwear on the OUTside, which would seem to logically indicate that my night has actually been MUCH more exciting than it's really been." He snapped the elastic waistband into place and surveyed them ruefully. "I'm starting to think these things are like an enchanted chastity belt out of a twisted fairytale, or something."


	2. Chapter 2

They ended up sitting on her floor. Who knew how or why. It was one of those "wee hours of the morning" things that just happen. Probably because, given the frustrated nature of the night they'd both had, lounging on her bed together was just not something either one of them felt comfortable doing at the moment.

Much less with a surplus of "ribbed for her pleasure" rubbers at the ready.

"I sure have spent a lot of time sitting on the floor tonight," he grumbled, as he shrugged out of his jacket and leaned back against her bed with his legs stretched out in front of him. Jess tucked herself (uncomfortably, until she grabbed a pillow) into the corner created by her bed and bedside table, and held out her spoon for him to "clink" with his bottle. "Cheers," she said. Then she delved into her carton of frozen comfort, and they did indeed, as he had promised, talk.

She went first, in between bites of ice cream: sadly in the beginning, embarrassed, and depressed that yet again her adventures had left her feeling foolish and rejected. And Nick tried to take her seriously, he really did. But maybe it was the late hour...or maybe it was the beer...or maybe it was the vague sense of desperate hysteria that had been hovering over him ever since he'd left Julia that night. But Nick found himself snorting out loud at various points in her story. And when it just became ridiculous to keep apologizing for it, he finally gave himself over to out and out laughter.

And soon Jess was reveling in the ludicrousness of it all right along with him, as she began to relish the detailing of her one-night-stand-gone-wrong until Nick was laughing until he was literally crying at The Valentine Misadventures of Jess.

The tale of her foibles and follies finally came to an end, however, and their laughter trailed off until they fell into a companionable silence. The next logical point of discussion would have been to address how he'd come to find her outside Schmidt's door, but neither one of them seemed ready to spoil the current mood.

Nick took a swig from the bottle that he'd forgotten he was even holding, as Jess chunked the empty ice cream carton into her trashcan, and asked, more subdued now, "Soooo...you're saying you didn't get any action tonight either?"

She gestured towards his be-hearted "chastity belt", and he sniffed regretfully and shook his head. "Jess," he asked, seemingly changing the subject, "Did I ever tell you about the time I entered a cock fight in Mexico?"

She raised a trepidatious eyebrow. "Please tell me this story involves chickens."


	3. Chapter 3

Ok, so maybe his Valentine adventures weren't quite as madcap as hers had been. But it had its moments. Jess had looked down and seemed to stay carefully silent during all the parts involving Julia, but she was a huge fan of Cliff, and giggled herself silly when Nick described the little kick that had toppled a pile of Julia's papers. Then her husky laugh had dissolved into soundless convulsions at Cliff wanting to spend more time with his "birds".

His story was all downhill from there, though. And when he got to the end, where Julia had just sent him on home, Jess's lips had positively compressed with what he knew was her effort not to comment.

So he quickly took the subject back to an earlier point, and chose to put the focus on what was really the clearest revelation he had taken from the night: "...but you know what was weird...just being there...watching her work...talking to Cliff...it really did remind me why I dropped out of law school to begin with. I mean, all this time I've been feeling like a quitter, or blaming the break up with Caroline, and feeling like maybe I should go back and finish...

"But tonight just took me back to how _unhappy _I really became pursuing that career. I mean, it's all I EVER thought I would do. I had an uncle who was a defense lawyer. He was the first person in my family to graduate from college, and 'make something of himself', and he was like a celebrity to me. My hero. My ma was constantly holding him up to me as an example. And I spent my whole life thinking that if I could just be like Uncle Leo, I'd be doing good.

"But the closer I got to achieving that goal, the more I just started having this quiet, inner FREAKOUT about it. Because I didn't_ want _to be that person. The guys that I was interning for, like Cliff was for Julia. The people who I saw working through holidays, and their kids' softball games. Watching their kids pull out their first loose tooth on goddam SKYPE. All because they were terrified of failure. Because in that world, losing one case can have the power to ruin you forever. I just didn't feel like I could handle that kind of pressure. Not right then, and not forever. And definitely not once I had a wife and kids waiting for me at home in a mini-mansion."

Wow. It had gotten really heavy, really fast. And that (for him) uncharacteristic heaviness was reflected in the slightly shocked, unblinking look on Jess's face. So he wrapped up the rare moment of sober honesty with a weak smile, "So...yeah. Caroline leaving me only jump-started the breakdown that was just looming on the horizon anyway, I think."

Jess took a deep breath to shake off the mood, blinked a few clarifying times, and said chipperly, "Okay, so while we're sharing things...did I ever tell you that when I was a kid I wanted, more than anything, to be a rock star when I grew up?"

"Wow Jess, that's a real shocker..." Nick intoned sarcastically.

"Shut up. Respect my passion. I wanted to be the next Janis Joplin. ANYWAY. So. The thing is, in high school I got this little band together, and we were pretty good, you know, for kids, and we started to get little gigs at parties and weddings and such. Just enough to really go to our heads and make us feel all self-important and famous, you know?"

"Not really..." Nick mumbled, still wallowing in his own perpetual sense of unaccomplishment.

She just ignored him. "And the thing is, as it turned out...sometimes when your dream becomes reality, you find out that maybe all the good stuff you imagined was true, but that you never imagined the bad stuff that would also come with it. Like all the nights the van breaks down. Or the time all your instruments get stolen when you're in the middle of setting up for a Sweet Sixteen party. Or your drummer quitting because he can't understand why it's not realistic for him to sing more solos."

"So it wasn't all it was cracked up to be." Nick interrupted her story to hasten the summing up. Honestly, he was a little annoyed by the self-absorption at display here. He'd just spilled his guts about why he'd quit _law school_, and she was comparing it to an adolescent fantasy? No, you know what, he wasn't going to just _think _that...he was going to say it out loud: "Are you seriously comparing your little high school band to me giving up on my dream career?"

"MY POINT," she emphasized with pointed but gentle reproach, as usual refusing to be insulted by his grumpiness, "...is that being a professional musician was _my _dream. And I did have some talent for it and success at it. But that didn't mean that that was how I was destined to spend my whole life. Sometimes as our lives unfold, and we try out different things, they tell us what is right and wrong for us. We just have to listen to our heart, and follow where it leads."

He was still looking a little confused and crabby, so she continued. "You know what Nick, I think maybe you should just adjust the way you look at it a little. You're still thinking about being a lawyer like that was your _adult_ goal in life, and like it was an _adult _failure. When maybe all it ever really was was a _childhood_ dream. Or a dream someone else was dreaming_ for _you, or something. And maybe listening to your heart and dropping out of law school was the smartest, most brave and grownup thing you've ever done. Maybe it was actually a wonderful and necessary step towards you figuring out what you really _are _meant to do with your life."

Dammit, he really wanted to keep feeling disgruntled towards her. But it was impossible when she was looking at him with that wonderfully innocent optimism of hers, all but nodding her head at him encouragingly.

So he smiled in spite of himself, and asked, "So, do you think being a teacher is what _you _were meant to do?!"

She cocked her head and squinted thoughtfully. God, he loved the way she always took his questions more seriously than he even meant them to be taken. "I don't know. Goodness knows it's not always a dream within a dream either," she smirked wryly. "But I do absolutely love it. Right now, there's nothing I'd rather be doing. But is this what I'm meant to do forever?! Who knows. Maybe this is just another step towards_ my _ultimate destination in life. And if it is, that's ok too."

He couldn't help teasing her, "And you never regret passing up on that rock star career?!"

"Who says I'm not a rock star?!" she answered him sassily, reaching up and grabbing the ukelele off the top of her bedside table. "My latest hit is an anthem about hallway etiquette. My students have been humming it all week. Prepare to have your mind blown."


	4. Chapter 4

At some point they'd stayed up so long that they decided to just go ahead and stay up until the sun came up. Some kind of heady slumber-party-mentality was involved in that pact...something along the lines of seeing Valentine's Day through together, until it was officially the morning of the 15th. Or something like that. Whatever. It seemed to make perfect sense at the time.

And, more importantly, it lent a structure of logic to the fact that neither one of them seemed to have any desire to part ways. And so, they just kept dragging more pillows and blankets down to pad their nest, stifling yawns in between telling giggly stories about old boyfriends and girlfriends, and singing ukelele-accompanied cartoon theme songs from the 80's and 90's.

"DOCTOR SNUGGLES?!" Nick said in disbelief, about half a measure into her latest tune. "Are you kidding me?! I've never met _anyone _else who remembers that show! People look at me like I'm nuts when I mention it!"

They muddled through the rest of the song together, each providing the lyrics when the other faltered, and at the end they smiled at one another like they shared a secret.

"Nick?" she asked softly.

"Hmmm?"

She wrinkled her nose at him happily. "It was kinda cool spending Valentine's with you!"

They'd tip-toed around it all night, but now he raised an eyebrow and ventured, "Better than spending it with Schmidt?!"

She immediately hid her face in her hands and pleaded, "Please, oh PLEASE Nick, I'm begging you. Can we just pretend that never happened?!"

"What on earth were you thinking, Jess?!" he asked relentlessly, but gently.

"I _wasn't_ thinking! Schmidt told me_ not _to over-think things!"

"I just want to know one thing: Why SCHMIDT?! Why not _Winston_, or...or..." _or ME?! _ he wanted to ask, but he continued, "...or that pale, skinny, writer-y guy down the hall who walks his secret-weinie dog every night at midnight, and always smells like scrambled eggs?"

"I don't KNOOOOOOOW! It had been such a crazy night, and he'd been so sweet, really...and I was feeling so frustrated and twirly...and he hugged me and he smelled really good! And he said something about my first one-night stand being with someone I knew, but someone it wouldn't mean anything with, and..."

_Someone it wouldn't mean anything with._ He glanced at her sharply at those words, but she seemed completely unaware that she was echoing a previous discussion they'd had. About why she'd stopped him before he could kiss her, that crazy night with Remy. Because kissing him would have _meant _something to her. Meanwhile, she was complete misinterpreting the look he was giving her:

"...and UGH, I KNOW, no matter how you slice it, it was SCHMIDT!"

_Someone it wouldn't mean anything with. _Now, as previously, Nick decided that he _liked _being "the guy that it would mean something with". Of course, she hadn't come right out and said it this time, but he chose to believe that it could be extrapolated.

"...PLEASE Nick, don't ask me to try to make sense out of it! I'm just grateful you showed up when you did. You don't know HOW grateful. UGH!"

_Someone it wouldn't mean anything with. _Yep, that worked for him. He could live very comfortably with that. So he gave in and grinned at her, and asked, "Well, this was nice too, right?" His beer was long gone, but he'd held onto the bottle like a security blanket, and now he used it to gesture around the little area they'd made their home that night.

"This was REALLY nice." They shared another secret smile, and then Jess's face turned suddenly animated, "OOOO! I even have the perfect theme song for us!"

She plinked and plunked a bit on her uke before starting:  
"I know  
you belong  
to somebody new,  
but tonight,  
you belong to me..."

"...just to little old me..." Nick echoed goofily, only slightly off-key, and Jess opened her mouth in happy surprise.

"You know this song?!"

"SURE," Nick said, "Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, 'The Jerk'...it's a classic scene."

He reached over and took the instrument from her, and strummed a few chords himself.

"Wait..._what?! _You _play?!"_

"You're not the only one who wanted to be a rock star, Jessica Day!" he chastised her with mock seriousness. "I'll have you know I once played guitar in a ska band!"

"You _did?!" _Her delighted shock continued.

"I did!"

She was gazing into space wonderingly now, as if contemplating fabulous possibilities. "So all this time we could have been sharing, you know, fellow-rock-and-roller stuff!"

He just grinned at her silliness, and started her song back up again:

"Although  
we're apart  
you're a part  
of my heart,  
and tonight  
you belong  
to me."

His singing was really, really bad, and as rusty as he was, his playing wasn't much better. But she listened in awestruck wonder before joining him:

"Wait down  
by the stream...  
how sweet  
it will seem,  
once more  
just to dream,  
in the moonlight...

My honey I know  
with the dawn  
that you  
will be gone,  
but tonight  
you belong  
to me."

And, as if reluctant for the song to be over, Nick tagged the last part again, more slowly this time, and they wistfully whisper-sang it together:

"My honey I know  
with the dawn  
that you  
will be gone,  
but tonight  
you belong  
to me."

And as the last notes faded, Jess looked out the window and whispered almost sadly, "Look Nick...it's morning."

Nick stretched awkwardly to look over his shoulder, and smiled rueful acceptance of the pink sky showing through her lace curtains. He breathed in once, deeply, through his nose, and exhaled regretfully as he slowly handed the instrument back to her. "I guess that's my cue to go."

"Afraid you'll turn into a pumpkin?!"

He laughed huskily as he stood, and groaned as he straightened gingerly. "I think I already did."

He twisted at the waist to loosen up his back, before glancing down to find her looking up at him with something so deep and pure that it stopped him mid-stretch. He couldn't have named it, that look in her eyes, but it warmed corners of his heart that he wasn't even aware had long since gone cold and dark, and made him feel like someday, just maybe, he might even be able to be someone's hero. Him. Nick Miller. Screw-up, extraordinaire.

"You know what Nick?!" she was asking with happy content, "this might go on record as my favorite Valentine's ever, actually!"

"You know what Jess?!" he squinted his eyes at her fondly, and agreed, "I'm kinda thinking the same thing."

Then she surveyed him with those big, serious, owl-eyes and asked tentatively , "Nick...can I...tell you something?"

"Sure, Jess," he answered, ignoring the fact that his heart was suddenly beating decidedly faster than usual.

But a long pause stretched out while she assessed him unfathomably from behind those heavy bangs and heavy frames. And just when the silence started to get uncomfortable, she blinked three slow times, and he could almost feel her deliberately shifting emotional gears, as she suddenly smiled and said, "If I ever get the band back together..."

"...yeah?"

"...you can NOT be in it!"

He grinned, "Oh, don't worry, I completely understand. As long as you understand that if I ever go back to law school, you're not tagging along."

"You don't think that 'Legally Brunette' would go over well?" she asked, coquettishly flourishing a pig tail.

"No, I just don't think it would be fair to anyone else. Because if it's possible to win an argument against you, Jessica Day, I haven't seen anyone do it yet."

She grinned back at him through a yawn and a stretch that was as wholehearted and unselfconscious as a young child's, before ending on a blissful sigh, "Happy Valentine's Day, Nicholas."

And he smiled back affectionately, "Happy Day AFTER Valentine's Day, Jess."

And suddenly it seemed to him that there was still a lot left to say. About life taking unexpected turns on the way to finding your ultimate destiny. And things that you thought you wanted until you got them. And things that you never even knew you desperately needed until they were right there in front of you, staring you in the face.

But just like in all the best fairy tales, the coming of dawn had broken the magic spell they'd woven around themselves, and it was time, like the song had said, for him to be gone.

Besides...he was still wearing those cursed chastity boxers.


End file.
